To counter BJP’s winning ‘panna pramukh’ formula, Akhilesh deploys booth rakshaks across UP

Booth rakshaks, the SP's answer to Amit Shah's panna pramukhs, will not only raise an alarm on EVMs malfunctioning but are to also ensure high voter turnout.

Poll workers carry EVMs at a distribution centre | PTI photo

Lucknow: Inspired by the BJP’s now-famous election management playbook of creating panna pramukhs (or page in-charges), the Samajwadi Party has deployed an army of ‘booth rakshaks‘ for these Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.

The task of the ‘booth rakshaks‘ is to raise an alarm on any incident of EVM malfunctioning and ensure high voter turnout from among the SP’s core supporter base. Their no-voter-left-behind motto is: Ek bhi vote ghatne naa paye, ek bhi vote batne naa paye (Not a single vote should be divided or lost).

“Booth rakshaks are our party cadre who have been given the responsibility of looking after each booth,” SP spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi said. “A booth rakshak will see to it that any anomaly at the booth is reported to the Election Commission, the candidate and the party immediately.”

The concept is similar to the BJP’s panna pramukh — a key campaigning tool considered to have been perfected by BJP president Amit Shah in the 2014 general elections.

Each panna pramukh works at the booth level and is in-charge of one page of the booth’s voters’ list.

“One page of the electoral roll has votes from around seven to eight households and being a local, the panna pramukh knows the voters,” said Rakesh Tripathi, BJP UP spokesperson. “Each panna pramukh has to ensure that the voters on his page cast their votes.”

This BJP innovation has been credited for the party’s crucial election victories.

An SP ‘booth rakshak‘, though, is not a page in-charge but has around 600 voters as his or her focus. In the Lucknow constituency, for instance, there are 1,826 booths and over 3,000 ‘booth rakshaks‘ who include councillors, state committee members, ex MPs, ex MLAs of the party.

“The party has deployed two booth rakshaks on every polling booth and there are around 1,200-1,400 votes per booth. In places where the booths have fewer votes, one booth rakshak has been deployed,” said SP leader Saurabh Yadav, who is part of the campaign team in Lucknow constituency.

Complaints of EVM malfunctioning forced SP hand

Numerous reports of EVM malfunctioning in the past elections, SP leaders say, led the party to come up with this strategy in the run-up to the 2019 elections.

SP leaders told ThePrint that meetings were held for the ‘booth rakshaks‘, at both the district and block levels, in which they were trained on the functioning of EVMs, rules and regulations governing the conduct of candidates and polling officers.

“It’s a new concept with trappings of the earlier normal booth karyakarta system. It’s more responsive and effective,” Gandhi said. “They are more trained on the electoral processes, election laws and election guide manuals now.”

He added that the move will not just increase voting percentage but also make the election process more “transparent, accountable and responsive”.

Meanwhile, the SP’s mahagathbandan ally, the BSP, maintained that it has also been making efforts to ensure that EVM malfunctions are brought to the EC’s notice and action is taken.

Maintaining that malfunctioning EVMs were a concern for political parties, BSP spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadoria said, “We are conscious of this concern, which might be a deliberate attempt to sway votes. Even the BJP has raised these concerns in the past.”